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New Student Group Formed to Fight HIV/AIDS on College CampusesBy Makebra M. AndersonNNPA National Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Two questions, printed boldly on a simple black T-shirt, has college students everywhere talking. They have students questioning their lifestyle, their friends as well as their past behavior. The inscription reads: got AIDS? how do you know? “The message we want to convey pertains to the myths surrounding HIV/AIDS and the need for students to understand their risk for infection, get tested and know their results. We want them to either stay negative, or if they do find out they are positive, get treatment because it can mean the difference between a long healthy life and a long life of not really living,” says Jonathan Perry, the student who spearheaded the T-shirt campaign through the group L.I.F.E. AIDS. L.I.F.E. AIDS, an organization formed by the Black AIDS Institute and the Magic Johnson Foundation, is aimed at educating and mobilizing Black college students in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The organization was conceived last year at a Black AIDS Institute-sponsored national AIDS Town Hall meeting at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where professional and student journalists met to discuss how they can keep AIDS in the forefront of the Black community. “The Town Hall meeting and teach-in were a result of my commitment to mobilize Black college students around HIV/AIDS. What came out of the teach-in was the foundation of what I believe will be the most awesome movement to fight HIV/AIDS Black college students have ever seen,” says Perry, a student human rights activist at Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina. Perry, an openly gay man who is also HIV-positive, has dedicated his life to educating students about the disease. He feels now his mission is more important than ever. “L.I.F.E. AIDS is important because it says to the world that college students, especially Black college students, are not going to sit by and let the disease be the Ice Age that wipes out an entire race of people. It says tomorrow will not die because the bearers thereof will not allow it,” he says. HIV/AIDS is a health crisis among African-Americans. According to the U.S. Census, African-Americans represent and astounding number of new HIV/AIDS cases. Only 12 percent of the population, Blacks account for 54 percent of all new AIDS cases. In 2001, HIV/AIDS was among the top three causes of death for African-American men between 25 and 54 years old and among the top four causes of death for African-American women between the ages 20 and 54. It was the number one cause of death for African-American women between 25 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As long as people engage in unprotected sex, the risk of getting HIV is high. For teenagers, the risk can be higher because of their feeling of invincibility and risk-taking behavior. It is estimated that almost half of new HIV infections occur among teenagers and almost 65 percent of them Black. Of the 59 children younger than 13 who had a new AIDS diagnosis, 40 were African-American. For Perry, these numbers were enough reason to start the organization. “The purpose of L.I.F.E. is to go above and beyond in the effort to unify our campuses and communities, to take ownership and become leaders in the fight, to create self and collective accountability, and to inspire people to take responsibility for their own actions and behaviors,” he said. “A lot of people I talk to say they are afraid to get tested because they are afraid of the results. So, if you have 25 percent of people living with HIV and having sex without protection, each one infects another person. The increase only makes sense.” Not only are Black youth disproportionately represented among HIV/AIDS cases, they also show higher rates of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) compared to Whites. The CDC reports that in 2003, the rate of Chlamydia among Black females was more than seven times higher than the rate among White females (1633.1 and 217.9 per 100,000, respectively). Among Black males, the rate was 11 times higher than White males (584.2 and 52.9 per 100,000 respectively). Additionally, the number of Black youth with gonorrhea supercedes that of White youth. In 2003, 70.7 percent of the total number of gonorrhea cases were among African-Americans. Blacks represented 655.8 cases per 100,000, Hispanics, 71.7 cases and Whites, 32.7 cases. To address the other health disparities among Americas Black youth, the work of L.I.F.E. AIDS is augmented by Ledge, a student-run magazine. According to its editor, Freddie Allen, Ledge gives students an outlet to write about HIV/AIDS and other health issues that endanger the Black community. “Young Black people and young Black women are being affected by the AIDS epidemic disproportionately. We want to try to raise the level of awareness and help our peers stay informed,” states Allen, a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “With the next issue of Ledge, we want to start looking at HIV/AIDS as part of a comprehensive health model. We really want to increase the coverage of all health issues affecting Black youth.” More than 100 students meet at the Atlanta HIV/AIDS Black Media Roundtable, which was hosted by the Balm in Gilead, an organization that mobilizes churches in the U.S. and Africa around HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; the Black AIDS Institute, the Magic Johnson Foundation, the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and Outreach Inc., an Atlanta group. It was at this gathering they discussed HIV/AIDS on their campuses. “Very little of what Black college students know and don’t know surprises me,” says Perry, organizer of the T-shirt campaign. “Johnson C. Smith University is taking some amazing steps in requiring income freshmen to take a HIV 101 class that educates them about the myths of HIV/AIDS as well as how to protect themselves.” Perry adds, “To me, it’s about accountability. I understand that I must not rely on anyone but me to define my existence. Nor must I hold culpable any man for the determination of the nature of my destiny – my life, ergo, my responsibility. We need to get that, and L.I.F.E. AIDS is here to communicate that!” He added that when young people make careless decisions like having unprotected sex, they are simply not thinking about their health. Perry is ready to change that. “I am getting an amazing number of requests for the T-shirts from faculty, staff, and students at different schools. I would like to see Nelly, P-Diddy, Will Smith, Janet Jackson, Jamie Fox, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Lil-Flip, Lil’ Kim, Alicia Keys, Snoop, Pharell, and other hip-hop and R&B celebrities dawn a T-shirt,” he says. “This is a way for us to convey the message that ‘them coloreds’ actually do care what happens to them. The world must stand up and pay attention to what we are doing.”